


Gently

by mkhhhx



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Growing Up Together, Hopeful Ending, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Religion, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 07:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19997818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mkhhhx/pseuds/mkhhhx
Summary: Most of his life is a damn long time to be in love with someone.





	Gently

Minhyuk has known Kihyun his whole life.

He was with him the first time Kihyun fell from his bike and cried while Minhyuk piggy backed him the whole way home. He was there the first time Kihyun played piano at the Sunday church and Minhyuk was standing there, in the middle of the choir, his words forgotten.

He was there when one of their classmates tried to bully Kihyun into giving away his lunch money. Minhyuk punched two of his teeth out and Kihyun hugged him while they was waiting out of the headmaster’s office. He was there when Kihyun got his first rose from someone on a valentine’s day too.

It was only natural to live together when they were both accepted at universities in Seoul. And Minhyuk would be wholeheartedly content, if only he didn’t keep a secret from his best friend, his platonic soulmate. They didn’t have any secrets from each other before, but it was something he couldn’t bring himself to say.

Because Minhyuk has been in love with Kihyun way before he first learned even what the word crush means.

And Minhyuk almost makes peace with it, because he loves Kihyun and realizes how blessed he is to still be his friend. Because Kihyun could easily push him away, their beliefs and ideas so different, middle moral grounds barely found between them. And somehow they were still inseparable, open enough with each other to make it work.

Minhyuk had though he would lose Kihyun once too many times already.

The first was when he came out, fresh in high school. He had kissed Hoseok at the locker room after everyone was gone. And when he messaged Kihyun to tell him, tell him that something at last feels right Kihyun had called him a sinner, his voice a copycat of his father’s. Minhyuk had cried himself to sleep that night. Had been so sick he didn’t go to school the next day. Because for the first time in the sixteen years he’s been friends with Yoo Kihyun he felt truly judged for something he did right.

But Kihyun had visited the Lee household that afternoon. He took Minhyuk into his arms and told him he’s sorry, that he got upset. But he could never police on his best friend’s choices, it wasn’t his place to do so. And Minhyuk had cried again, because as happy as he was that Kihyun was trying to accept him it was also the exact moment he had realized, he didn’t have any chances with him.

He learned to ignore it, the ugly feeling nesting deep in his bones. He learnt to look away every time Kihyun looked at the night sky from their apartment window and he learned to keep his mind occupied every time Kihyun sang while doing the dishes. And while Minhyuk had grown up to be all long limbs and wide grins, Kihyun had matured in another way, with sharp lines and a polite smile usually on his face.

And god, Minhyuk couldn’t stop falling for him.

And Kihyun kept having little bursts of conservatism over the years. When he realized that Minhyuk had been doing way more than just kissing boys. When Minhyuk drunk so much at some party he woke up to a stranger’s bed the other day. When Minhyuk stopped going to church with his family and then when he openly stated he doesn’t even believe anymore.

But Kihyun always came back to him, he always asked Minhyuk questions, trying to understand and empathize. And Kihyun was always there, when Minhyuk’s parents kicked him out of the house for some weeks and when Minhyuk’s first boyfriend broke up with him.

And maybe all this was a grand mistake, because Minhyuk just kept falling deeper and deeper.

“Do you want to come to church with me?” Kihyun asks sometimes. And Minhyuk says yes. Because he sits there, at the front row and Kihyun plays the piano and it makes Minhyuk believe in some form of god all over again.

He felt himself spiraling down, little by little. His boyfriends knew something was wrong, knew he was unable to give his whole heart away to someone, Kihyun always kept a part for himself. And Minhyuk could, he so could take it back, give his heart intact to someone else, someone who would love him back as much. But this tiny spark of hope would never let Minhyuk do it.

He would try his luck and his limits with Kihyun time after time. Holding his hand, looking into his eyes and praying to nothingness for a miracle to happen. For Kihyun to understand what is going on in his mind. Yet Minhyuk would never tell him, because that would, for sure, put an end to everything they had.

And his heart shatters when Kihyun tells him he got himself a girlfriend, a nice girl he met at the church. And when they break up on friendly terms a few months after Minhyuk picks up his broken heart pieces, puts them together with some glue and gives them back for Kihyun to hold.

“That’s bad for your health” Kihyun says when he catches him smoking at their tiny balcony in the late hours of the night. And it’s the first time Minhyuk thinks of confessing, pouring his heart out, letting it in the open for Kihyun to step on. He’s so tired of keeping it inside him, that little confession.

“I know you love him” his last boyfriend had said the last time they saw each other, “he deserves to know.” And Minhyuk keeps thinking of these words. It’s true, Kihyun deserves to know the truth. And Minhyuk will have to live the rest of his life knowing his best friend, the love of his life, finds him absolutely disgusting, maybe prays for him to somehow get “fixed”.

Back at their balcony Minhyuk takes a long drag of smoke and gives a weak, sad smile at Kihyun. And Kihyun smiles back at him, like he knows everything already.

The days, the months, the years pass, fast and torturously slow at the same time and Minhyuk feels more and more trapped. Trapped between the idea of Kihyun in his mind, of what Kihyun could be for him and the real, actual Kihyun, a wall away from him.

And the more girls Kihyun brings home the less people Minhyuk sleeps with. He almost prays for it to end, but if god exists he must have labeled Minhyuk as a sinner already. And that is his punishment.

“You have to stop smoking.” Kihyun tells him another night, freezing cold outside in the middle of their last year at university.

“You have to stop banging girls you’re not gonna marry” Minhyuk answers and he immediately regrets it.

Kihyun looks at him, looks at him softly and it’s worse than any outrage he would have some years ago. Minhyuk feels everything up his throat at once, the tears, the bile, the regrets. He’s scrambling for the right words to say he’s sorry because despite everything they’ve said to each other in the middle of fights all these years, he’s crossed a thin line this time.

“Are you jealous?” Kihyun asks, his voice low, flat. Minhyuk wishes it was mocking instead.

Minhyuk stares, he stares for so long and hard as if he could talk to Kihyun with his eyes. He has forgotten that he actually, can.

His mind clears only for a moment and he realizes his insignificance in the whole wide world, the limited time he has, the few tries to make things right, or very, very wrong. And most of his life is a long damn time to be so in love with someone.

“I am.” He looks at Kihyun, ready to get slapped, mentally, or not. “I am jealous of them.”

Kihyun stares back at him and time stops. The cigarette burns away and someone shouts from the street below them. Minhyuk can’t feel his fingertips from the cold and he’s standing still, waiting for anything, anything from Kihyun. Like he always was.

“I know.” Kihyun takes a step towards him. “I know you are, you have been for years.”

“…What?” Minhyuk takes a step back, creating the illusion of space between them.

“Do you think I am a fool?” Kihyun takes the burnt butt from Minhyuk’s hand and throws it in an old, empty pot. “Do you think I don’t notice how you look at me? How you have always been looking at me?”

“And how is that?” Minhyuk tries to regain his composure, his hand, closed in Kihyun’s shaking.

“Like there’s nothing more you’d want in the world than kissing me.”

Minhyuk tries to hold back, maybe even deny everything and pretend this conversation never happened, but the tears are already silently running down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry” it’s all he manages to say, both to Kihyun and himself. For chasing a dream that could only end up becoming a nightmare for both.

“Minhyuk” Kihyun cups his face, “Minhyuk, look at me.”

Minhyuk looks up to meet Kihyun’s eyes and they are gentle, as gentle as the hand caressing his hair and the thumb rubbing circles at his cheek while he’s sobbing.

“I’m sorry” is all he says again and suddenly he wants to turn back time, escape Kihyun’s gaze, because Kihyun knows, he’s known all along.

“I love you, I love you so much” Kihyun moves even closer to let Minhyuk cry on his shoulder, “Not in the same way you love me and it will probably never be like that, but we will work this out.”

Minhyuk hugs Kihyun’s waist, clinging on it like a lifeline. For once there’s hope, not for the things he wished for, but for something that won’t lead to destroying his longest lasting friendship.

“I’d want that” he manages, all snotty and watery and Kihyun gives him a little hum, “I can’t bear losing you over this and I was so scared-“

“You won’t, you won’t lose me over some girl or some guy” Kihyun moves, slowly stepping back inside their living room, “I won’t shut you out because you have feelings for me, I’m not the person I used to be.”

“I’m sorry I can’t make it go away.” Minhyuk lets out a breath he was holding and suddenly feels so tired, pliant as Kihyun makes him sit on the couch and wraps him in a blanket.

“I’m sorry I can’t give back all the love you have for me.” Kihyun leans to kiss the crown of his head before sitting beside him. “We’ll find our way, Minhyuk, I promise.”

And it’s not the ending Minhyuk was hoping for, but the one he needed. And the ending he needed was in fact, a new start.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
